She told the story in a monotone, methodically sorting CDs and putting them back on the shelf. The details of her father’s death reported in the newspaper had made readers stop in the street and gasp, she said without emotion. She pointed to a cardboard box that lay open on the floor next to a stack of greatest hits CDs. It was filled with Idaho Statesman clippings.
Mesa began to leaf through the collection of yellowing newspaper articles and was riveted. The story of Lowell Austin took on a completely different tone now compared to the way Cinch and Chance had told it. This was writing that gave readers goose bumps—and justified reporters’ ghoulish reputations.
Meanwhile, Kathy talked about Austin as if she were a radio announcer relaying information about one of the CDs she held. “Just before he stood trial, he told one of the detectives where he had buried my father’s body. His lawyer convinced Austin it would soften the public’s attitude toward him. Not that he would need to worry, as it turned out.”
Finally, they had a funeral. Hundreds of people came to show their respect. Many wept openly. Kathy learned these details later, when she read the newspaper articles her mother had saved. All Kathy knew as a ten year old was that her father was never coming home.
“It changed our lives forever,” she said. Finally, tears pooled at the corners of her eyes. “The prosecutor wanted us sitting front and center at the trial to remind the jury of what Austin had done, leaving two fatherless children. But my mom wouldn’t have it. She went instead, sitting there day after day while the defense lawyer made awful accusations about my dad. I don’t think she ever got over losing him.”
“So how did this bastard find you?” Irita finally asked. “What did he want?”
Kathy resumed her shuffling of CDs. “He didn’t find me,” she said. “I found him.”
“What?” Irita said, her eyes wild with disbelief. “You contacted him? Have you lost your mind?”
Here, Kathy offered up a grim smile. “Revenge can take many forms.” She looked at Irita and Mesa, exchanging glances with both of them as if they were part of her conspiracy. Then, in a voice that sounded more like a small child’s, she said, “I wanted to break his heart like he broke mine.”
This sounded like some bizarre reality show assignment. Could Kathy really be serious? Mesa and Irita exchanged glances as if the other might have some insight, but neither said a word. They both knew better than to interrupt.
“I was in paralegal school,” Kathy continued, reaching for the cup of coffee on the table. “We took a course in the American penal system and prisoners’ rights. At the time, Lowell Austin was the farthest notion from my mind. I learned about prisoners and their relationships with women on the outside. Prisoners get married, even lifers. You’d be amazed at all the prison pen-pal organizations that are on the Internet.”
Mesa made a mental note to check out the websites. She thought she had an attraction to “bad boys.” At least none of them was doing time, as far as she knew. Still, she wanted to know more about these women who fell in love with convicts. It might do her good.
“Then about three years ago, around Christmas time, I read D.C. Chandler’s obituary.” She held up a CD on top of the greatest hits stack. “He wrote ‘The Ballad of Lowell Austin.’ God, Garrett, and I hated that song. It came out right as the trial started. They even played it on the local radio station.”
So Chance wasn’t trying to be funny when he said someone had written a country song about Austin. Jesus, Mesa thought, there was no end to what people would do for fame and fortune. “Must have been awful.”
Kathy shrugged. “TV movie too. The media liked to portray Austin as the last American outlaw—a folk hero defending a vanishing way of life. From where we sat, it was just plain heartless.”
Mesa wanted to fade into the upholstery. She was all too familiar with what mainstream media had become and what lengths it would go to if it meant selling papers or gaining viewers. All the more reason she wanted to work for a counterculture publication like Pacifica.
“Anyway, Chandler died of lung cancer, and his obituary mentioned the song. That’s when my mind starting spinning, wondering if Austin was as miserable as I wanted him to be in prison. And I started thinking about what I could do to get back at him. Nothing illegal but some kind of payback. I found out what prison Austin was in and eventually I wrote to him.
“I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to accomplish—maybe just make him realize what it’s like growing up without a father. Maybe give him a chance to show some remorse, which he had never done. Of course, I didn’t let on who I was. When he wrote back, I couldn’t believe it.”
The mere thought of getting a letter from a murderer creeped Mesa out. But maybe knowing the guy was behind barbed wire-topped walls would seem safe. “Weren’t you afraid of developing a relationship with a killer?” Mesa asked.
Kathy shook her head. “I was too caught up in ‘the plan.’ She used her fingers to signify the quotes symbol. Besides I expected his letters, if he could write at all, to be cold and arrogant, which would have made me more determined.”
Here she stopped again and shuffled some more CD cases. “Except they were just the opposite. I began to realize writing to me meant a lot to him. That’s when I started to think it would be easy to set him up.”
Kathy had to be in another league when it came to revenge. Getting even was something Mesa had last thought about on the playground. But mature, healthy adults don’t make plans to take revenge, or do they?
She tried to put herself in Kathy’s shoes. If someone murders your father in cold blood, what do you do? Pretend it didn’t happen, be a victim?
Mesa knew how hard it was for her at first after her mother’s death, and she had died of cancer. Simple questions like “where do your parents live?” became difficult to answer. Part of her just did not want to be reminded of the loss, or have to say the words, “My mother’s dead.” She could not fathom the pain of knowing your parent had been murdered.
Bringing the killer to justice was supposed to satisfy the victims, but Mesa wondered if it really did. Judges and courts were impersonal. Nothing they could do would bring back the parent or ease the pain of a child’s loss.
And when the child grows up, then what? You realize the inequity. Your father’s dead and his killer is alive in prison and will get out some day. Maybe it’s surprising that Kathy hadn’t done more to even the score. Then again, maybe she had.
“But then something strange happened. The more he wrote to me”—she faltered here for a moment. “I know this might sound unthinkable, but—the more I could see he was a human being with feelings. You could tell how lonely he was. He had no one in prison he could genuinely call a friend. No friends or family. No visitors.”
Kathy was fully engrossed in telling Austin’s story. Mesa pulled out the reporter’s notebook she still had tucked in her purse. Just a few notes, she thought.
“He liked art and made jewelry,” Kathy continued. “He talked about wanting to live a decent life once he had served his time.” She stopped to pick up another stack of CD’s. “And somewhere along the way, through all those letters, I stopped hating him.”
Clearly, Kathy no longer thought of Austin as the man who had ruined her childhood. Mesa wrote on her pad, “from revenge to redemption?”
“When he wanted to come see me, I did get scared but not of him. I was afraid of having to tell him who I was, peeling back my mask.”
“I thought that was what you wanted to do,” Irita said, sounding almost irritated.
“I finally decided I would have to tell him right away. But when I heard his voice on the telephone for the first time, even then I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it.”
Kathy stopped talking and reached for the coffee cup, but it was empty. She began to stand. “I’m going to make some more coffee. You two want any?”
“I’ll do it,” Irita said and jumped to her feet. “You sit down and don’t say another word
until I get back. I don’t want to miss any of this.”
Kathy turned so that her back was to the arm of the sofa. Then she closed her eyes, oblivious to Mesa’s presence.
Mesa stood to stretch. She walked over to the mantel and looked at the photos. The largest picture, a family portrait taken some years ago, showed four of them posed on a picnic table. A mother with a husband’s arm around her on the table, their feet on the bench, a girl in a sundress and pigtails leaning against her father’s legs. A boy with a baseball cap and a grin that exposed two missing front teeth standing next to the mother. She thought of her own family’s portrait in Nan’s office at the paper, and her heart went out to Kathy, sharing the pain of a parent’s death.
In front of the photo on the mantel lay a tarnished key chain with a metal coin insignia of the Idaho Forest Service. Mesa couldn’t help thinking of her father, and the medals he had given her as keepsakes.
In matching chrome frames were school photos of the two children Mesa had met on Monday at the picnic. The last photo on the end of the mantel was a picture of Garrett Birch on one knee bookended by the children, one in each arm. They were all smiling. The photos seemed all the more poignant with the memory of the grandfather the children never got to know.
Mesa looked back at Kathy, whose eyes were still closed. Not wanting to disturb her, Mesa tiptoed out and joined Irita in the kitchen.
They whispered conspiratorially. “Talk about truth stranger than fiction,” Irita said. “And to think, I had no idea. Poor kid.”
“She’s in for more heartache,” Mesa said. “When the FBI finds out she’s the mystery woman, and with a motive to kill Austin, they’re going to be all over her like corn on the cob.”
“Coyotes on a carcass,” Irita corrected. “You’re not in Ohio anymore, sweetheart, remember?”
“Whatever,” Mesa said and leaned against the kitchen counter while Irita fiddled with the coffeemaker. “What’s odd is that she’s got me convinced she had nothing to do with Austin’s death. She genuinely seems upset about it, like she’s surprised somebody killed him.”
* * *
The phone perched on his shoulder, Chance sat at Nana’s desk and listened to what Layton James had to say.
“Brad Simian apparently fell from a mountain bike in Canyonlands sometime late this past Saturday.” James sounded like he was reading from a police report.
“He’s sustained a serious head injury, cracked ribs, and a broken ankle.”
“He’s damn lucky to be alive,” Chance said. “Canyonlands is rough country.” He had ridden there himself on more than one occasion, but he had always been with Hardy, who knew the area like the back of his hand. “Where exactly did it happen?”
Chance could hear the rustling of pages in a notebook. He imagined it was one of those burgundy leather jobs with a loop for a gold Cross ballpoint. “Near a place called Hardscrabble Hill.”
That made it White Rim Trail, a hundred miles of the most isolated, red rock country in the Southwest. The locals thought the trail had become an overrated tourist spot, but that didn’t mean the ride was a cakewalk. Anybody, from beginner to slick-rock junkie, could get hurt on a mountain bike in Canyonlands, anywhere, anytime.
“Three of his colleagues arrived at the park the day before and began a four-day trip they had planned,” James continued, his tone methodical but vexed. “Unexpected business delayed Mr. Simian. To make up for lost time, he flew down in the company plane on Friday. He was trying to catch up to the rest of his party the next day when he was injured.”
So this guy was well-heeled thought Chance. President of his own company, flies his own plane, can take off with the boys in the office to go mountain biking. Nice life, except for going endo on the trail.
“I checked with the airport here in Moab. They say that Simian asked them to refuel the plane so it would be ready when he wanted to fly out, but he gave no indication when that would be.”
Chance couldn’t help but chuckle. The Moab Airport was even smaller than Butte’s, nothing but a single asphalt strip and a windsock next to the highway in the middle of red sand desert north of town. Chance had seen longer driveways. Most of its traffic came from general aviation aircraft that flew in for the big mountain bike and jeep off-road races in the spring.
“The Moab sheriff had some suspicions about drug smugglers maybe taking the plane down to Mexico. So we called the FAA, and that’s when they alerted us to the situation in your area.”
“The FBI is handling the investigation now,” Chance said. “I’m sure they will want to talk to your Mr. Simian.”
“That could be tough. He’s been in a coma since Search and Rescue brought him in Sunday morning.”
Chapter 16
“So who took Austin up in the plane?” Irita asked Kathy when they sat down again with fresh coffee.
Kathy had stopped sorting her CD collection and simply sat in the middle of the disarray. “I have no idea.”
“Well, when was the last time you saw Austin?” Mesa asked, aware that soon the FBI would be asking all the same questions.
“Saturday night,” she said and turned again to the clutter around her, and began to alphabetize CD’s by artist as best Mesa could tell.
“He came to dinner. I made lasagna and we talked right here. He sat where you’re sitting now,” she said and pointed to the couch.
Mesa fought the urge to get up. She felt suddenly uncomfortable with the lingering proximity of someone who had recently died, and so violently. “What did you talk about?” she asked and tried not to sound morbid.
“Butte. Lloyd said he had already met some nice people. He had applied for a job with Brownstone Printing over on Harrison.” Then she paused and said, “It wasn’t like we had planned some romantic tryst. We were just two adults trying to be kind to one another, for God’s sake. What’s so hard to understand about that?”
Mesa said nothing, and Kathy lowered her voice. “He left around 9:30 when it was time for me to put the kids to bed.”
Mesa tried to imagine what must have been going through Kathy’s mind. How could she talk to Austin and not think about her father? “So did you tell him?” Mesa asked.
“Tell him what?” Kathy said, holding a Ray Charles Christmas Collection in her hand.
“Who you were,” Mesa said. “Did you have your confrontation?”
Kathy hugged the CD to her and shook her head. “There was a time when I dreamt about the heartbreak I’d make him feel when I told him who I was. But when the time came, that wasn’t the way it was. I spent a total of about five hours with Lowell Austin, and in that time, I found some neutral zone. It was a relief to be honest.”
Mesa wasn’t sure what to think. How could Kathy have betrayed the memory of her father that way? Maybe this was all smoke and mirrors. “You’re sure you don’t have any ideas about how Austin ended up in that plane on Sunday?”
Kathy was busy again, putting CDs back into the wall case. She shook her head.
Irita took over. “Kathy, someone saw your car at the airport on Monday.”
Kathy stopped her shelving and then slowly turned around. “That’s not possible. I took the kids up to Georgetown Lake on Sunday. We stayed the night at my friend Connie’s parents’ cabin.”
“You drove up to the lake?” Mesa asked.
“Well, no. We went with Connie’s parents in their RV. The kids have been bugging me to ride in it. They drove us to the Labor Day Picnic on Monday, and then took us home.”
“What about Garrett?” Irita asked.
“I invited him to come with us, but he wanted to see Tessa. I guess he stayed there overnight. He came with her to the picnic on Monday. I haven’t seen him since.”
Mesa remembered the blonde at the swings with Garrett. Tessa Revelle. That was her name. She had graduated from Butte High a year before Mesa. “You mean you haven’t talked to him now that Austin’s dead?”
Kathy put the final handful of CDs back into the b
ookcase and then looked back around. “Garrett showed up at my house on Saturday evening—barely said two words, dumped his duffle bag, then left again. I haven’t seen or heard from him since Monday after the picnic. I don’t know that he’s in the mood to talk about much of anything.”
Mesa was surprised how unsympathetic she seemed toward her brother. He didn’t look like he was in such good shape, especially if he was AWOL. “Did he know that you had been writing to Austin?” Mesa asked.
“He called me as soon as he arrived stateside a couple of weeks ago, and I told him that Austin was getting out. That’s all. He was shocked I even knew.” She gestured with her hands opened in front of her as if to say, “go figure.”
“Maybe it’s hard for someone else, who hasn’t been through what we have, to understand. But the whole time we were growing up, my mother wanted us to remember the good things about my dad’s life. That’s how you survive—selective memory. Once we moved back to Montana, Garrett and I never once talked about what happened to our father.”
Mesa just couldn’t understand. She and Chance had become closer after their mother died of cancer. Of course, they were teenagers and old enough to give voice to their emotions. Kathy and Garrett were still in grade school, and their father had died a violent death. Maybe, their trauma was so deep that they’d buried their emotions.
Even now, Kathy seemed oblivious to how others might view what she’d done—enticing Austin to Butte and then he turns up dead. “Kathy, you do realize the authorities are looking for a car just like yours?” Mesa asked. “Might be a good idea to call them before they come looking for you.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” Kathy said and then walked to the end of the bookshelves. “At least not by any manmade laws,” she muttered. She looked at a shelf of kid’s books, picked up a handful, and began sorting them by size. Then she stopped. “I hate the pain of having it all in the papers again. My kids don’t know anything about any of this. They’re more innocent even than I was.”
* * *
Chance sat at the computer in his grandmother’s office. He had helped Irita move it there when she, for all intents and purposes, had begun to manage the paper while Nana was in the hospital. He knew now that it had been a mistake to keep this from Mesa.